A Much Easier Way to Reach Your Goals

Many of us have great intentions of reaching our goals. We may tell ourselves;  "I'm going  to work out more, I'm going to increase my sales this month, I'm going to work on home improvements this week, or I'm going to begin drinking less alcohol". All of those are great goals, however, it's too easy to not reach any of those goals if we phrase them as I wrote them. 

In order to be more successful in your goals you must get much more specific than the examples I listed above.  A great system to use is the SMART goal setting system.  SMART goal setting brings structure and traceability into your goals and objectives. SMART goals create clear milestones and an estimation of the goal's attainability. 

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What does S.M.A.R.T. goal setting stand for?

S = Specific

• What "exactly" do you want to achieve? (get specific)

M = Measurable

• You need to be able to identify "exactly" what it is you will see, hear, and feel when you reach your goal. Eating healthier isn't a good goal. But, eating vegetables at least twice a day is an excellent goal. You can clearly see your progress. 

A = Attainable (this was originally named Assignable)

• Be realistic in your goal setting. I'd love to be a millionaire but that's not very attainable for me right now and too broad of a goal. Setting smaller goals will help you see success earlier and be very motivating.  So a better goal might be:  "I want to increase my income by 15% within the next six months." For some that's a small goal, for others it's a big goal but it's most likely attainable.  It's a specific number in a specific time frame. Also you need to weigh the effort, time and other costs that it will take to work on your goal. 

R = Relevant

• Is reaching your goal relevant to you? Is this what you really want?   Do you want to be famous, do you want to have four children, do you really want to work a busy job? Ask yourself why you want to reach your goal.  Be sure your goals are for you and not because someone else thinks you should reach for them. 

T = Timely

• Everyone knows that deadlines are very motivating for most people.  So don't work on goals that have no timeline attached. It's too easy for us to say, "I'll work on that goal tomorrow".  Set goals with a realistic timeline.  "I will lose 5 lbs in one month"... not.. "I will lose weight".  Remember, be specific so you can see when you've reached or are reaching your goal.  Ground your goal(s) with a time frame, giving your goal a target date. 

Being a therapist, I use this SMART system with many of my clients. I help them get very specific on what they want to accomplish in therapy. This may take a few sessions to figure out but it's important to clarify the goal.  

To have someone say, "I want to feel better about myself" is good, but it will be too difficult to know when my client will be there. So I dig a little deeper and ask my client, "What does that look like to you?"  After some exploring my client may say, "Instead of crying 4 days a week, I want to work on only crying 2 days a week".  That's very specific and attainable.  We work on that goal and after a month or so we revisit the goal. Is the client crying less?  How many days a week are they crying now?" Once they've reached crying only 2 days a week we set our next goal. How about crying only 2 times a month? Again a specific goal. 

This system works well when working on communication issues in relationships.  A couple may argue every single day.  So our measurable goal may be that they argue only 4 days a week.  Of course, we don't want arguing at all, but is that realistic?  Attainable?  We set goals that we can be successful with.  Once that goal is reached of only arguing 4 days a week we set a new goal of only arguing two days a week, and so forth. 

During the sessions, while working on goals, the therapist is exploring with the client what got them in their predicament. What changes need to be made and how can some of their problems be resolved.  It's all a work in progress all striving for those specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely goals. 

Why don't you think about a goal or two you'd like to reach?  Then apply the SMART goal setting approach and see if that makes reaching your goals a bit more successful. I bet you'll be pleased with your results. 

If you are in my area and need help reaching your goals, please feel free to reach out to me and together we can work this system.  It may take just a few sessions to get you set up and going.  You can then check back a month or so later and we can explore how you are doing.  My hope is for everyone to be successful in their goals, no matter how small or large. 

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Liz Birch is a licensed Marriage & Family Therapist who provides services in her office in Tustin, CA.  Her areas of expertise are in communications, relationships, marriage strengthening, stress reduction, depression, trauma, anxiety, anger, personal growth, and ptsd (civilian and military). She can be reached via LizBirchTherapist.com,  email at LizBirchMFT@gmail.com, or by calling 714-614-0612.

​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria